Longlived Throwaway Encounters

[Umbra]

After I mentioned my little old lady NPC who was just trying to walk to the next town to visit her sister yet generated 2 hours of roleplay for the party who felt obliged help her, BardStephenFox used the phrase "I had two encounters I considered throwaway encounters that the players loved" and gave two of his own examples...

One was a common ferryman. Brak was his name. He was slow but strong. Wore a big floppy hat. The PCs engaged him in conversation and mentioned they were adventurers. Brak mentioned that he once adventured. The PCs asked if he wanted to join them. In slow speaking horror, Brak turned them down. Taking off his hat, he said there were 'bigguns' out there and he would not adventure anymore. Once his hat was off his head, the PCs could see that part of his skull had been bitten and crushed.

They dropped the subject and noted that they didn't want to encounter any 'bigguns' anytime soon.

The other encounter was with a pot salesman trying to make a living. He had even hired a guard so he could make it through the lands that were plagued with undead. He didn't have enough money to not travel to the next town even though most of the other merchants weren't willing to make the trip.

The PCs were happy to tell him they had just finished clearing most of the bad things from the area. They swapped information on which towns were nearby and they even bought a cauldron from him. (Then the dumped all their gold into it to show off. Bastards!) I don't remember the merchants name, but we spent a lot longer on that encounter than I planned. I know a couple of the players remember the merchants name.

I love both of these and want more! So what throwaway encounters have you used which grew into something more?

 

[BSF]

*shakes head and laughs*
I'm glad you liked them. My players really liked Brak. They would go out of their way to use his ferry and the would sometimes stop by to check on him. I had wanted to convey that when they crossed the river they were moving into more dangerous territory and I thought having a retired adventurer that met up with a big nasty in the wrong way would be a fun way to press home the feeling of danger, without having to directly threaten the PCs. It was fun and Brak remains a bit of inspiration and a lesson to me. Never underestimate what your players will find enjoyable and who the PCs will take a liking to.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

There have been several, but the most famous is El Perro Muerte.

This first originated in a Rifts game. The group were in the Vampire Kingdoms (Mexico) and looking for a place to wet their whistles. I quickly came up with El Perro Muerte, a really tough bar in Ciduad Juarez. It's a 30-second mental investment that has endured for nearly 10 years now.

Somehow, and inexplicably, El Perro Muerte kinda stuck with the players. It has since appeared in every single gaming system I've run, even though the original players are no longer in the group. It's also showed up in some of the other original players' games.

Even in worlds without Spanish, El Perro Muerte retains it's name (i.e. "Nobody in Waterdeep recognizes the name of this bar as anything remotely resembling a language on Toril..").

It's become a convenient plot device as well. When the party goes looking for trouble, they just go looking for El Perro Muerte.

 

[The_Gneech]

In the game I play in, we encountered an old coot in a rocking chair on a tavern porch that even the DM just referred to as "Ol' Geezer." He was our local informant on who was who and what was what around town, and every time we came back from an adventure, we'd regale him with our tales of daring, and he ate it up.

Well, the campaign has moved on to another nation now, but we still keep in touch, sending Ol' Geezer letters describing our adventures, or if there's no post, notes via animal messenger and the like. We even occasionally manage to get back to see him in person. He's become something of our mascot -- as well as giving us a "home" to return to.

-The Gneech

 

[Evilhalfling]

A throw away town -
Hot Springs, just outside a large corrupt city.
The players spent two hours bathing, buying soaps, massages and tipping the halfling waitstaff. The barbarians first offical bath.

The party ranger who had lived nearby(in backstory) led them to a nearby abandoned spring where there were no fees but there was a stronger smell of sulfer. On the first visit he was there with just the barbarian, on later visits the party goes to this spring as a memorial.

 

[Dagger75]

Well for a Star Wars game I made a giant slug looking alien that could talk. Sort of like a grosser smaller Hutt. His name was Kribish. He was a bumbling minor crime lord who some how managed to own a droid manufacturing plant and a small moon. The party was supposed to work with him ONCE. Well after like meeting him for the fourth time he sort of became the go to guy when things got hot in the Star Wars universe.

He has the survived through Star Wars D6, D20 and revised. I FINALLY stated him out.

 

[Chimera]

Happens occasionally. For some reason a minor NPC clicks with the group and becomes something much more.

When I first saw this thread, I thought of the old former-priest in a self-styled module adventure during a 2e campaign about 10-12 years ago. A Time-travel/Horror scenario that didn't work quite as advertised, but was none-the-less very fun. A variation of the vanishing town myth blended with the "horror in the past" at a deserted temple.

PCs are travelling down a road for some odd reason. Get warned not to go down some side road, so naturally they do. Keep getting dire warnings, but proceed. Slowly the road turns black. Once it does, they can't get off it, they can't go backwards.

Blah blah blah, past the vanishing/lost in time village where the people tried to sacrifice them, and on to the old temple.

Along the way they encounter a small house with an enclosed yard, surrounded by a low stone wall. On this wall are as many holy symbols of every known (and several unknown) religions as can possibly fit. And inside, an old man tending a garden. A lush, well tended garden - when all around is basically wasteland.

Well, the old man was a former cleric, now semi-senile. He has no real information to share - or well, he does, but isn't in a mental state to be able to share it. Was just intended as a sort of warning post / flavor encounter. But my players spent well over an hour dealing with the old man, and even came back to him after they had dealt with the evil. (They were disappointed that he didn't believe that they had rid the place of evil.)

 

[Kemrain]

[IC]"Well, I remember that night fairly well. Intense pain and blood loss tend to make a memory stick. Not to mention someone's first time. Anyway, I was feeling cocky, and had decided to break my way into a warehouse - One I hadn't cased - One with a few too many guards. It was the luckiest night of my life, but it didn't start out that way.
On my way there, I passed by a house of ill repute with a beautiful redhead sitting outside. I couldn't make out her figure, her wearing a heavy cloak to keep off the snow and all, but when she called out to me, I couldn't help but smile at her voice. But, I was on task, and politely turned her down.
I'd gotten the lock on the side door open, but it'd taken forever. I was worried that someone had heard, but the guards gave no reaction. After listening at the door, and being unable to make out anything sounding too hostile, I turned the handle on the door. That, was a mistake - the Guardseargant had been sleeping in a chair, leaned up against the door. He crashed to the ground with a clatter, and was up on his feet before I could react. Spry, for an older fella. I tried to bluff my way past him, telling him that the owners had asked me to check up on their security, and I was 'pelased to find it top knotch', but when he looked like he wasn't buying it, and I heard other guards approaching, I panicked and ran.
I hadn't gotten more than thirty paces away when I heard a, now familiar, twang sound, and felt that quarrel impale itsself in the meat of my calf. Went clean through, too. Wish there'd been enough time to grab it - would'a made a fine souvinere. I stumbled, bleeding, into an alley, the guards giving chase. I'm not exactly sure how I evaded them in the streets, but I ended up passing by that brothel again, limping somethign awful. The woman on the porch came down and started bringing me in, telling me I'd be safer inside. I didn't argue.
In a back room of that brothel, she bound my wound, washing it with water and honey first, saying it'd keep it clean. The guards came to the door, and I could hear another girl, one I'd limped past in the hall, denying she'd seen someone matching my description. Later found out that was an expensive lie.
Well, I ended up paying the the redhead's services, and she was gentle on my leg. Early in the morning, she let me go, most of my silver remaining behind. It wasn't the last time I saw her, though, I promise you that. The next time, she payed me! But, that's the story of how I met your mother, and my wife."[/IC]

Sometimes, a throwaway character in the first pre-adventure can change the course of the game.

- Kemrain the Unclean?

 

[Tinner]

This happens all the time!

I get this a lot in my campaigns. No matter what game we are playing, it seems the PC's always take a shine to some of the NPC's that I assume are going to be minor encounters at best. It's probably because I enjoy making these "small" encounters more fun, by giving the NPC some over the top personality quirks.
The one that really blew my mind was in a Shadowrun game I was running. The long-standing team of PC runners had finally made enough money to invest in a legit business to launder their ill-gotten gains. They decided to open a nightclub. None of them had the knowledge needed to successfully run a club, and they knew that as shadowrunners, they would need to be away on "business" quite often, so they decided to hire a general manager to handle the day to day affairs of the club.
They wanted to roleplay a couple of interviews, so I came up with two potential candidates. They were both based off people I went to college with IRL. The first was a dirty, mush-mouthed punk kid who talked about how great he was and how he had such big ideas for their "crappy little club" I deliberately made this guy out to be the biggest, most annoying obnoxious loser I could. He had bad hygiene, a bad attitude, and his nickname was The Worm.
The second candidate was pleasant, professional, had a long list of references and reccomendations, a pretigious list of business credits, etc. He was neat, tidy, and respectful. I figured this was their "go-to-guy" for sure.
Lo and behold they decide to hire The Worm!!!
I was boggled. "Why would you hire this guy with no experience, who looks like 10 kilcks of bad road, and has some of the most annoying mannerisms I could portray?" I asked.
Their reasoning, was that he'd be more grateful for the work. They then spent months (IRL!) getting The Worm through charm school, paying for his plastic surgery and dental work, and training him to do the job they hired him for.
We had a lot of fun with all the RP, but I still can't figure out why anyone would choose a character like that.

 

[barsoomcore]

Oh, baby.

The most powerful character in Barsoom was invented as a margin note in another NPC's stat block mid-session.

I wanted the players to start encountering some magic and stuff on Barsoom, and to set up a few seeds about an item they were carrying, so I created a sorceress named Kani Nakamura and sent her after them to steal the item. It was meant to be a very challenging, very surprising encounter, but not beyond their abilities.

Just as she was showing up I reasoned that she (since she had to be of a level appropriate to the party's) wasn't tough enough to really be an independent operator, so she ought to have a boss. I scribbled a name on the encounter sheet, next to Kani's stat block, just in case the issue came up.

My favourite actress in the world is Maggie Cheung, whose Chinese name is Cheung Man-Yuek, so I just flipped that around and wrote "Yuek Man Chong" on the sheet.

The encounter didn't go at all how I planned because the party got her talk instead of fight, and agreed to hand over the item if she would agree to take them to meet her boss.

Yuek Man Chong. Who at that point in time, didn't exist. I had to make the rest of the session up completely off my head.

But when Madame Yuek came on stage she completely took over my campaign. The entire fate of the world eventually rested in her insane little head, she turned out to be more immensely powerful than anyone else in the world, and was the focus of a two-hundred-year-old plot to take control of a secret organization that was founded to save humanity, that resulted in that season's final conflagration, dead PCs everywhere, dead everything else everywhere, shattered loyalties, angry fights, melodrama galore -- I eventually had to kill her just to allow my PCs to have room to grow. She was just overshadowing everything else in the game. She's definitely my favourite character, PC or NPC, I've ever created.

All from a margin note.